GOD WILL GIVE YOU A FUTURE AND A HOPE

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“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” John 3:16-17

Step 1. You need to repent of your sin of rebellion against God and His commandments, accepting Jesus as your Saviour and Lord, acknowledging the enormity of His sacrifice on the cross.

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” John 3:5

Step 2. You need to be baptised (evidence you have died to self and arisen a new person in Christ) and receive the Holy Spirit as your counsellor, teacher, helper and comforter; otherwise, you cannot live the Christian life.

“‘For I know the plans I have for you’, says the Lord. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.’”  Jeremiah 29:11

Step 3. Know that God has a plan for your life, but you must allow the Holy Spirit to guide your every step. Do not grieve Him or quench His work in your life.

“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” Ephesians 4:30

GOD IS LOOSENING SATAN’S HOLD ON THE U.S.A.

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In November, Trump was elected President of the USA largely on the basis of putting God back in His rightful place (In God We Trust). In December, The Wall Street Journal reported that Bible sales were up 22% while sales of other books were essentially flat. In fact, in 2019, 9.7 million copies of the Bible were sold in America. Last year, that number approached 14 million, with most sales driven by “first-time buyers.”

Then there is football, with Ohio State players preaching to students last summer and on national television after winning the national championship, Boise State head coach Spencer Danielson praising Jesus at the Fiesta Bowl, and Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh leading his team in the Lord’s Prayer, God-talk on and off the field has been conspicuous this season. 

Or consider the “moment” God is having among secular thought leaders. Richard Dawkins and Elon Musk, recognizing the importance of Christianity to the West, have labeled themselves “cultural Christians.” Former New Atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali experienced and defended a conversion to the Christian faith, as did her husband, well-known historian and Hoover Institute fellow Niall Ferguson. Former atheist and popular historian Tom Holland’s bestselling book has changed the narrative about the positive role Christianity has played in making the Western world. Psychologist and author Jordan Peterson often references Scripture and just released a 500-page book attempting to draw lessons and meaning from the Old Testament. And, of course, podcaster Joe Rogan recently interviewed Christian apologist Wesley Huff for his 14 million subscribers. 

Justin Brierley, co-host of the “Unbelievable” podcast and author of The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God, thinks we are seeing something significant: 

[T]hey say God moves in mysterious ways. I see signs that he is moving in the minds and hearts of secular intellectuals. Many of them are recognizing that secular humanism has failed and, against all their expectations, seem to be on the verge of embracing faith instead. 

Brierley thinks this “wider turning of the secular tide in the West,” is a result of secularism’s failed predictions. A couple of decades ago, the New Atheists promised a rational utopia in the wake of religious decline. Instead, we got a crisis of meaning, widespread “confusion, a mental health crisis in the young, and the culture wars.” Now, a “New Theist” movement has sprung up, and even those not converting to Christ have toned down the anti-Christian rhetoric. Some are even suggesting that faith is good for the world.  

Still, Brierley cautions that what we’re seeing is far from a revival. Many of the “cultural Christians” of our moment are not believers, nor are they claiming to be. There’s a big difference between regarding Christianity as a “useful fiction,” able to restore vigor and cohesion to the West, and submitting to it as the ultimate truth that demands our allegiance and devotion. For the millions of new Bible owners, the difference is between looking for sage advice and looking for God. Neither a better world nor a better you is what Christianity fundamentally offers.  

Though a “vibe shift” in favor of religion is welcome, and cultural Christianity is genuinely a good thing, Christ does not claim to be “useful.” He claims to be the risen Son of God and King of kings, before whom every knee must bow. Those hoping to make Him “useful” overlook that the West did not become a great civilization because people believed Christianity offered good advice, but because they believed it was true. Anyone who tries to use the God of the Bible to some earthly end will only be repeating the blunder of Mainline Protestantism, not doing something genuinely new or important. 

At the same time, the truth about Christ is compelling. Thus, the renewed interest in this cultural moment can be welcomed and celebrated. Secularism has failed to satisfy the human soul or build the utopia that was promised. But Christ will not fail, not in this world nor in the age to come. Our task is to point insistently to the full and glorious truth of His rule and reign.  

We can direct the curious to resources like The Bible Project, or Graeme Goldsworthy’s classic book, According to Plan, both of which explain what the Bible is and what it teaches. Proven apologetic classics like C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity are incredibly helpful resources for those willing to give God a new look. Most importantly, the Church must be the Church, with the Word faithfully taught and lived. After all, we know that God’s Word will not return void, and He is at work through His people in this and every cultural moment.

I LOVE JORDAN PETERSON: GOD IS USING HIM MIGHTILY

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There are very few people walking the earth today who can claim to have engaged the minds of millions in the way that Jordan Peterson has, and his influence isn’t based on political power or obscene wealth, but his diamond-cut intellect. Having garnered notoriety from his decidedly anti-mainstream takes on news and culture, Peterson has been tempered by the fires of public opinion and left stronger than ever. That isn’t to say however that the man is made from stone, and when the conversation turns to his father, and by extension fatherhood, Peterson has no shame in letting the tears flow. Together, he and Piers Morgan conjure up a meaty dialogue on Trump, America, family, and God as they discuss Jordan Peterson’s latest book We Who Wrestle with God: Perceptions of the Divine. ENJOY

PARADIGMS OF ORIGINS

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The design of the DNA of a simple cell is much more complex than we see in the development of the latest supercomputers. How do we explain that simple fact with the evolution paradigm? It is impossible. The Genesis paradigm is the only one that can explain the evidence.

Philosopher of Science, Paul Nelson compares the way a supercomputer works, compared to a bacterial cell, and then explores the countless things any paradigm of origins must necessarily explain. After Dr. Paul Nelson received his BA in philosophy with a minor in evolutionary biology from the University of Pittsburgh, he entered the University of Chicago, where he received his PhD (1998) in the philosophy of biology and evolutionary theory. He is a philosopher of biology who has been involved in the intelligent design debate internationally for over two decades.

TRUE PEACE IS KNOWING THE GOD WHO IS IN CONTROL

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True peace must be rooted in something lasting. Only our omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, God will do. Combining these in order, the words translate to “all-powerful, all-knowing, and “all-present” or “present everywhere”

The peace of God is found in the decisive victory of a monumental conflict. The alienation of humanity from God by the product of our willful rebellion against His authority put us clearly on the wrong side of an unequal equation. We became God’s enemies, and any peace we could offer fell solidly into the counterfeit category. As Paul wrote to the Ephesians, we were without hope and God in His world. But by the blood of Jesus Christ, God preemptively made the offer of peace to his hopeless enemy:

“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near” Ephesians 2:13–17

We can be at peace only when we are reconciled to God through Christ. In Him, our anxieties are alleviated, and our hostility is put to death. Nothing can disrupt that kind of peace. Wars and rumors of wars will still rage, but the person who walks by the Spirit will walk amid the storm to a voice that cries, “Peace! Be Still!”

God has given us detailed information on the fast-approaching end of this era for Earth. It is a time of intense tribulation for Christians so only those in Christ will have peace and be able to be used by God to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom to all the world.

“And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.
“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” Matthew 24:6-14

You need to be Living Eternal Now – Ready for Jesus Return. Available as an ebook or paperback on Amazon.

THE HOLY SPIRIT IS A SOMEONE NOT A SOMETHING.

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This post follows my previous post “Is God a Trinity“. If you have not read it but are interested in looking at the arguments for and against God is a Trinity then I suggest you do so before you read this testimony of Dr Walter Wilson.

The testimony of Dr Walter Wilson is powerful. Converted on December 21st, 1896, Walter had a deep love for the scriptures yet it bothered him that his life did not seem to bear spiritual fruit. In 1913 he was challenged by a missionary with the question, “What is the Holy Spirit to you?”

Wilson answered, “He is one of the persons of the Godhead, a Teacher, a Guide; the third person of the Trinity.

The missionary responded with: “He is just as great, just as precious, just as needed as the other two persons of the Trinity. But you still have not answered my question, What is He to you?”

“He is nothing to me”, Wilson said, surprised at his own candour. “I have no contact with Him, no personal relationship, and get along quite well without Him,” Wilson replied.

“It is because of this that your life is so fruitless even though your efforts are so great“. The missionary’s words taunted Wilson into the next year. He wanted to bear the fruit of the Spirit but feared becoming a fanatic, giving an inferior place to Jesus Christ. On January 14th, 1914 everything changed when Wilson heard a sermon preached by Dr James Gray (he became President of Moody Bible Institute) on Romans 12:1

SERMON BY DR JAMES GRAY
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” Romans 12:1

Notice this verse does not tell us to whom we should give our bodies? It is not the Lord Jesus…..He has his own body. It is not God the Father….He remains upon His throne. Another has come to earth without a body….God gives you the privilege and indescribable honour of presenting your bodies to the Holy Spirit, to be His dwelling place on earth. 

After hearing this sermon Walter Wilson prayed the following prayer:

“My Lord, I have mistreated You (HOLY SPIRIT) all my Christian life. I have treated you like a servant….I shall do so NO more. Now I give you this body of mine ; from my head to my feet……………., I hand it over to YOU for YOU to live in it the life that YOU please.”

Walter Wilson, the beloved physician often testified, “Concerning my own experience with the Holy Spirit, I must say the transformation of my life on Jan 14th, 1914 was greater, much greater than the change that took place when I was saved Dec 21st 1896.

Make sure you do not treat the Holy Spirit as a “something”. He is a “someone”.

IS GOD A TRINITY?

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I am convinced that God is a trinity of three persons. There is no dispute about God the Father and God the Son as persons but there is certainly dispute about the Holy Spirit.

The United Church of God is one church denomination that believes the Holy Spirit is something not someone. Their main arguments include the following:

If God were a Trinity, surely Paul, who was taught directly by the resurrected Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:11-12) and who wrote much of the theological underpinnings of the early Church, would have comprehended and taught this concept. Yet we find no such teaching in His writings (which I will dispute). Moreover, Paul’s standard greeting in his letter to the churches, as well as individuals to whom he wrote, consistently mentions “God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” And in each of his greetings, he never mentions the Holy Spirit! (The same can also be said of Peter in the salutations of both his epistles.) The same greeting, with only minor variations, appears in every epistle with Paul’s name. Notice how consistent he is in not including the Holy Spirit in his greetings: Romans 1:7, 1 Corinthians 1:3, 2 Corinthians 1:2, Galatians 1:3, Ephesians 1:2, Philippians 1:2, Colossians 1:2, 1 Thessalonians 1:1, 2 Thessalonians 1:1-2, 1 Timothy 1:2, 2 Timothy 1:2, Titus 1:4, Philemon 1:3.

The Holy Spirit is always left out of these greetings—an unbelievable and inexplicable oversight if the Spirit were indeed a person or entity coequal with God the Father and Christ! Paul’s epistles record no attempt on his part to explain the Trinity or Holy Spirit as a divine person equal with God the Father and Jesus Christ. However, in 2 Corinthians 13:14, we have “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” 2 Corinthians 13:14

They would argue that in visions of God’s throne recorded in the Bible, although the Father and Christ are seen, the Holy Spirit as a third person is completely absent.

They also argue that Scripture reveals the Holy Spirit not as a person, but as something much different—the divine power through which God acts.

They also claim no theological or biblical justification for referring to the term “Holy Spirit” with masculine pronouns, even in Greek. The Greek word pneuma, translated “spirit” (but also translated “wind” and “breath” in the New Testament) is a grammatically neuter word. So, in the Greek language, pronouns equivalent to the English “it,” “its,” “itself,” “which” or “that” are properly used in referring to this word translated into English as “spirit.”

This information was extracted from the book: Is God a Trinity? United Church of God.

The Scriptures they have difficulty with are the following:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20

Jesus told the disciples and therefore us that He must go so His Father could send the Holy Spirit to be our counsellor, teacher, comforter, and helper.

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” John 14:26

“When they arrest you and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but it is the Holy Spirit.” Mark 13:11

It is difficult to understand how “a power” can be our counsellor, teacher, and comforter. Particularly when Paul tells us to make sure we do not grieve the Holy Spirit or quench His work in our lives. You cannot grieve a “power “or “something“.

“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” Ephesians 28:19-20

“Do not quench the Spirit“ 1 Thessalonians 5:19

THE HOLY SPIRIT ACTS AS A PERSON:

•HE SPEAKS: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches” (Rev 2:7), “And while they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” Acts 13:2

•HE TEACHES: “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you” John 14:26

•HE WITNESSES: “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness of me” (John 15:26) “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” Romans 8:16

•Directs your path (Prov. 3:4-5, Proverbs 143:10).

•Helps you and He lives within you forever (John 14:16).

•Guides you in all truth (John 14:17, 16:13a).

•Brings to your remembrance all things He said to you (John 14:26b).

•Tells you things to come (John 16:13).

•Reveals to you the deep things of God (1 Cor. 2:10).

•Freely gives you all things (1 Cor. 2:12).

•Offers you the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16).

“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God..” Romans 8:16

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” Romans 8:26

Paul also tells us that the Holy Spirit produces the fruit of the Spirit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, gentleness, goodness, kindness, and self-control. He is also the one who provides the gifts for ministry, all nine, as needed.

JESUS IS LORD, HE MUST ALWAYS BE CENTRE STAGE. THE HOLY SPIRIT ALWAYS REVEALS JESUS MORE FULLY.  Where the Holy Spirit is in control, Jesus is proclaimed the Head – the Holy Spirit, His executive.

DOES GOD EXIST

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To whet your appetite I have given a summary of four good arguments for the existence of God and hope they will prompt you to go to http://www.creation.com and or http://www.answersingenesis.org for more information.

THE DESIGN ARGUMENT

The universe has clear organizational structures and intricate laws that control it indicating an intentional complex plan. How can such high-level design exist without a designer? To claim that chance accounts for the world’s order and extreme complexity is irrational.

http://www.encodeproject.org The discovery of DNA and the electron microscope rang the death knell of evolution. DNA stores information in the form of a four-character digital code, with strings of precisely sequenced chemicals that transmit detailed assembly instructions. DNA builds protein molecules, the intricate machinery that allows cells to survive. Consider the most complex software program you’ve ever used. Could it have developed on its own, without an intelligent designer? Of course not. How much more ridiculous is it to suppose that time, chance, and natural forces—on their own—produced the far more complex DNA?

Scientists once likened the components of living cells to simple LEGO blocks. Now they know that “cells have complex circuits, sliding clamps, energy-generating turbines, rotors, stators, O-rings, U-joints, and drive shafts.” None of those tiny engines work unless all parts are present. Hence, they must have coexisted from the beginning. That’s what biochemist Michael Behe calls, in his book Darwin’s Black Box, “irreducible complexity.”

Non-Christian physicist Paul Davies writes, “We now know that the secret of life lies not with the chemical ingredients as such, but with the logical structure and organizational arrangement of the molecules…. Like a supercomputer, life is an information-processing system…. It is the software of the living cell that is the real mystery, not the hardware…. How did stupid atoms spontaneously write their own software?… Nobody knows.”

I think there’s a better answer than “Nobody knows”; namely, the atoms didn’t write their own software. God did.

THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

The Cosmological argument cites the world’s existence as evidence of an uncaused, eternal being who created and sustains it. Either, something comes from nothing (an unscientific notion), or a first cause or “prime mover” existed before everything else. Francis Schaeffer argued in He Is There and He Is Not Silent that a personal first cause, God, could account for both the material and personal elements of life, while a material first cause only accounts for the material.

THE TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENT

The transcendental argument says that no part of human experience and knowledge has meaning apart from God’s existence. Without God, we have no basis for or explanation of order, logic, reason, intelligence, or rationality. Since Christians and atheists agree there is order and basis for reasoning, this is evidence for God.

THE MORAL ARGUMENT

The moral argument claims the existence of universal moral values—what humans generally recognize as right and wrong—has no explanation or objectivity without God.

1. Objective Moral Values Exist

  • Premise: Objective moral values (i.e., moral values that are true regardless of human opinions or beliefs) exist. For example, things like “murder is wrong” or “kindness is good” are often considered to be universally true.
  • Argument: If objective moral values exist, they need a grounding or source that transcends human subjectivity.

2. Moral Values Require a Foundation

  • Premise: If there are objective moral values, they must be grounded in something beyond mere human preference or societal conventions.
  • Argument: Naturalistic or atheistic explanations often struggle to account for objective moral values because they typically reduce moral values to evolutionary or sociological constructs, which are seen as subjective or relative.

3. God Provides a Foundation

  • Premise: The existence of God (or a transcendent, morally perfect being) is proposed as the best explanation for the existence of objective moral values.
  • Argument: A moral lawgiver (God) is posited to be the source of objective moral values because a perfectly good and just being can provide a foundation for these values, ensuring their objectivity and universality.

4. Conclusion

  • Conclusion: Therefore, the existence of objective moral values is best explained by the existence of God.

IS JESUS GOD?

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Matthew states that this child (Jesus) is God (God with us):

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel (which means, God with us)” Matthew 1:23 & Isaiah 7:14

John is likewise explicit in the prologue to his Gospel:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1 & “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14

Some of the disciples called Jesus God directly.

“Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” John 20:28, and “Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ” 2 Peter 1:1

The book of Hebrews is most emphatic that Jesus is God. Hebrews 1:8, applying Psalm 45:6 to Jesus Christ, states: “But to the Son, He [the Father] says: ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.'” Other parts of Hebrews explain that Jesus is higher than the angels (Hebrews 1:4-8, 13), superior to Moses (Hebrews 3:1-6), and greater than the high priests (Hebrews 4:14-5:10). He is greater than all these because He is God—along with the Father. and the Holy Spirit.

The doctrine of the Trinity means that there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct Persons — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Stated differently, God is one in essence and three in person.  Essence is what you are, person is who you are. So God is one “what” but three “whos.”

“Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” John 17:1-5

SIGNPOSTS TO GOD

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Prominent atheist Richard Dawkins was once asked what he would say to God if he encountered Him after he died. Dawkins quoted what Bertrand Russell is reputed to have said when asked the same question: “Sir, why did you take such pains to hide yourself?”

I think I can understand why some might echo that sentiment. After all, God is invisible; we can’t perceive Him directly with our physical senses. Yet the signs of His existence—indeed, of His goodness and greatness—are everywhere. The Apostle Paul was right when telling a first-century pagan audience that God has always given evidence of His existence through the good things He has done, such as “rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” (Acts 14:17). God has put up signposts everywhere to help us find our way to Him. Here are just a few of them.

The humblest believer in God as Creator must exercise far less credulity, and has far less explaining to do, than the most ardent evolutionist materialist.

Of course, fallen humanity has devised many increasingly sophisticated speculations of how nature could have made itself. Ministries like Creation Ministries International (http://www.creation.com) provide people with specific answers to such challenges. Even so, it pays to step back and contemplate the ‘big picture’ of what is claimed, and its affront to common sense.

Evidence of design

Flicking through a magazine one day as a child, I came across a photograph of Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, with the unmistakable likenesses of four American presidents carved into the rocks. Knowing nothing of how these came to be there, I remember thinking, “How strange! These can’t have happened by accident.”

Precisely! No one could seriously suggest that these shapes resulted from wind, or rain, or glacial erosion. These carved faces are clearly the result of creative design and effort.

Though not professing a commitment to anything like the God of the Bible, Paul Davies, former professor of theoretical physics at The University of Adelaide, writes in his book The Mind of God:

Through my scientific work, I have come to believe more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together with an ingenuity so astonishing that I cannot accept it merely as a brute fact … I cannot believe that our existence in this universe is a mere quirk of fate, an accident of history, an incidental blip in the great cosmic drama.2

The humblest believer in God as Creator must exercise far less credulity, and has far less explaining to do, than the most ardent evolutionist materialist.

Another signpost is human nature. We have been made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Thus, we have spiritual capacities that cannot be explained apart from God. Language, reason, ambition, creativity, humour, wonder, worship—all these have no counterpart in the natural world. These qualities mark us out as different from the rest of God’s handiwork. This is another way of saying that our Creator has endowed us with the capacity to relate to Him at a personal level.

Within human nature, conscience is another sign pointing to God. Proverbs 20:27 says of the human spirit that it is “the lamp of the Lord, searching all [man’s] innermost parts.”. Our conscience is responsible for our intuitive knowledge of right and wrong, good and evil. The Apostle Paul states that even those who don’t have God’s law in written form still have a conscience that commends them when they instinctively do what it commands and accuses them when they don’t (Romans 2:14–15).

Even without a ‘book of rules,’ we know it’s wrong to lie, steal, covet, and murder. Conscience ‘puts a pebble in our shoe’ whenever we violate it. The standard it sets and the guilt it inflicts point us to God—the Source of all good and the Judge of all evil.

Eternity in our hearts

Our longing for eternity is another pointer to God. Somehow, we know and feel that this life is not all that there is. Archaeologists have discovered how carefully and elaborately the ancient Egyptians prepared for the afterlife, and they had no Bible to tell them about a life to come. Where does this longing for eternity come from? Everything on Earth is subject to change and decay:

Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end (Psalm 102:25–27).

These ‘immortality longings’ we all feel at various moments are pointers to the God who created us in His own image.

Hunger of the soul

Another signpost to God is our longing for meaning and purpose. We always knew when our cat Simba was hungry and wanted to be fed. (Any cat owner knows that dogs have masters, but cats have staff!) He would eat his prescription dry food and go away content; his next meal seemed to be the limit of his horizon. But we can’t live at that bare, subsistence level—at least, not for long. We crave meaning and purpose in our lives; we long to enjoy significant and satisfying relationships.

This sense of longing is often called ‘the homesickness of the soul’—and rightly so, for that’s precisely what it is. The true object of our longing is God. The words of the psalmist reflect this truth:

As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? (Psalm 42:1–2)

Illuminating the way

Of all the signposts pointing to God, the Bible is by far the clearest. When a British monarch is crowned, he or she is given a copy of the Bible, and told, “This Book is the most valuable thing that this world affords. This is the royal law; these are the lively oracles of God.” When we read the Bible with a humble and teachable attitude, we find it to be a source of supernatural wisdom and power. The psalmist prayed: “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Psalm 119:18). Paul reminded his young associate Timothy that Scripture provides the wisdom and instruction that leads to “salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15).

Scripture’s major theme is Jesus Christ, God’s only Son. As the “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), Jesus is the clearest and most compelling witness to the existence and greatness of God the Father. Jesus Himself said: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). He is the perfect transcript of what God is like.

But the supreme demonstration of God’s love and care is the sending of His Son into the world to suffer death on the cross, to save us from our sins, and to reclaim us for Himself. The Cross is more than enough to convince us that God loves and cares for lost people (Romans 5:8). Jesus Himself said that He came “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).

There are signposts everywhere to help us find our way to God, but the most vital one is Jesus. He said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

The article Signposts to God is by Peter Howe on http://www.creation.com